Senses Poem

She stares at me with green
spider-web eyes, getting
stuck the more I fight it.
I warned you, she whispers;
that voice, like old blue-jeans
comfortable, edge-frayed--
smile inhospitable,
colder than December--
she's wondering which sin
I will commit this time.
All I want is a taste,
seeking deep for a trace
of her sweet youthful core--
hands connect electric
my cracked lips seal the spark--
her warning unheeded,
never to fall into
her callous hands again.

*Inspired by EnIrehTak*

Sic Transit Gloria Monday

Thus passes the glory of Monday, and it's still the weekend! What little joy I had in the first Christian day of the week has slipped away. Let me explain. In a short 24 hours I will be leaving work to head into the torment of Math 1050, again discussing the use of matrices in sequencing and probability.
I shudder at the thought, not because I dislike math, but because of the way we are being taught. We last left off figuring out vectors of 2x2 matrices, using the lambda as scalar, which in turn leads to more letters and roots. It ends up being a big alphanumeric orgy, and there's magnitude and eigen values and orthogonal vectors! Aahhh! And the kicker? No other teacher would teach us this stuff in this class. He said so himself. The various students leave befuddled and confused, while visions of Greek letters dance in their heads.
I can deal with the sigma and recursive values and finding partial sums of a sequence. But this is where my synapses draw the line. I need the rest of my brain cells to write my papers and absorb sixty-page chapters of American history. We had a four-day break, so I should be refreshed enough to follow along as he transposes columns to find determinants. Here's hoping.

Another Number

I wake every morning a different person,
and close my eye each night the same man,
dreaming of a new way to reach that stasis,
even as I change before the eyes of the world,
fleeing from the molds and minds, freeing
my soul daily from mutual slavery, everyone
bound to another, under another, over
another. Master and slave at once, every day
a different number, a different glare,
an enchanting smile. Even if I buy the promises
of your lifestyle you will not let me sleep
as I should. So I change, in my dreams,
something you cannot brand, simplify or steal,
and I awake each day, with a new identity.

written 3-17-08

Barachnophobia

*This was written before the election, but I think it will still be applicable over the next four years.*

Running out of personal flaws and associations to attack, a prominent right wing pundit managed to spin an unexcused sneeze emitted form presidential hopeful Barack Obama into this:

At approximately 4:50 pm Eastern yesterday, Barack “Hussein” Obama began what can only be called a vindictive and potentially lethal germological attack on several prominent elected officials of the United States. During an important and lengthy closed-door meeting on the economy among top officials including many members of the Republican party, Obama staged the surprise attack on the group, including Bernake and John McCain, in a sudden, quiet, and mostly unnoticed sneeze, sending an unknown number of bacteria into the small room, possibly in the thousands. Showing a wanton disregard for the health and safety of even his own party members (speaker Pelosi seated directly across from him), he didn't even apologize or excuse his possibly dangerous sternutation. It is still unknown at this point if Obama is currently infected or coming down with some bacterial or viral infection, but we here pray to God and for our country this was a false attack, a warning shot if you will. It is possible that William Ayers could have supplied Barack with a particularly virulent strain of the flu or common cold, knowing he would be at this meeting and near John McCain that afternoon. I can only see this as an intentional and vile threat to the good senator, whose spokesman is glad to report that the Maverick is currently in perfect health and strong as ever. A second sneeze later in the afternoon on his way to his elitist bus near a crowd of wooed liberal supporters confirms my belief that Barack hates America, willfully spreading germs upwind from a group of misled civilians. They dispersed shortly after, so the effects of this second attack remain to be seen. If your grandmother dies from the flu this winter, you can blame Barack Osam-Obama.

101 Damnations

I swear, I wasn't anywhere near that place

This is probably the first and only time the Catholics have said or done anything that I have agreed with. Well, at least the clergy. Not all of it, mind you. Jamison accuses corporations like Disney for spreading consumerism as an alternative to religion and spirituality. He suggests this is the reason for the declining morality in society, but more on my thoughts on that in a minute. Although I do agree with the abbot that people turn to something like Disney as some sort of 'religion,' likening a trip to Disneyland or -world unto a hajj to Mecca, I do not agree that is causing a decline in morality. Catholic morality, maybe. But then again, we don't much like stretching infidels on a rack anymore. Ahem.
Disney, as I happen to see it in my twisted perception, is 'evil' because it uses children as a direct marketing device, selling them a dream, something they want to obtain, and scream and cry until their parents obey and they get it. Right after they stuff a Mickey D's meal in their sticky hands to shut them up for fifteen minutes. But can I really blame Disney for trying to make a buck (more like 35 billion bucks a year) and filling a niche in the market? If it wasn't them it would be someone else, right? Probably.
But shouldn't they take their massive share of the market and try to effect some change in society? Imagine what they could do with their already captivated audience if they quit with the vague morals and loose grasp on reality, ditched the direct-to-DVD marketing ( that's a whole 'nother steaming pile) and focused on instilling some realistic views on the world in their plots, instead of the confusing sexual messages and vapid female characters. They could really grab morality by the short and fuzzies and show kids what the world is really like out there, albeit with talking animals. It could happen. Couldn't it?

Here's that 'in a minute' thing I was telling you about. Why do the religious try and shove it down our heathen throats that you can't be moral without religion? And sorry, spirituality doesn't count. Put your crystals away and stop praying to Mother Earth for a moment. They can be and often are, mutually exclusive. You can be moral without religion, and you can be religious without morality. Try and prove me wrong. I'm not religious, but I know it's wrong to steal, kill and lie. But I know pious types that think it's OK, if you can just justify it a certain way.
Morality has actually increased, if you look at it with a historical perspective. We no longer consider women or black people property. We no longer duel in the streets, or make 'colored' people use a different bathroom. Religion is actually separating us further, instead of uniting us when we really need it. I say away with capitalism, consumerism, religiousism, er--basically everything that is harming us as a whole. And don't let your kids grow up watching Disney, for the love of Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Capitalism At It's Finest

Praise be unto the almighty d'Allah!

"The first casualties in the War on Christmas are already rolling in, one man trampled in a New York Wal-Mart, two men shot dead in a California Toys 'R' Us parking lot, and at least one reported fight over an Xbox. Wait-this just in off the line--this is not about the War-on-Christmas fantasy, it's about the bewildering lengths people will go to in order to obey a made-up tradition telling them to shop."
I am still amazed how quickly and easily people will give up their hard-earned cash on command, like a man with a mugger's knife in his ribs. It begins with creating a 'tradition' like Black Friday (which sounds awfully like a day I want to avoid) and then instituting the slow but inexorable 'Christmas creep' (not a fantasy, I saw Xmas crap on sale in August, no kiddin'). Society has been so well-trained by corporations and advertising over the years that they literally will trample each other to death in order to spend their money.
I admit I have socialist tendencies, must have been all that Ginsberg commie-fag stuff I read, so I pick on capitalism a bit, but only because it is a short-term desire system, and self-supporting, at that. But this institution isn't the main problem, it's people who think they and their sullen little offspring need to have that brand-new-thing, because everyone else will have it too. And we all know that hell hath no fury like a twelve year-old who doesn't get Rock Band for Christmas.
So just keep on completing the cycle by granting whatever wish their rotten little hearts desire, get them that new iPod, buy yourself a new SUV since gas is going down, and max out those credit cards, because I think the Jones' might just get ahead of you if you don't. These sheep are all lost without a Sale sign to guide them.

AIGee, We Deserve the Money

News this morning of AIG executives not getting bonuses this year, because that would be wrong. Instead, they are getting 'cash awards' to stay with the company they have run sooo well. And not just a handful of top execs, 130 of them. And, oh, they're going to get it in a couple months, not right away. My vision began to get a little blurry and red while reading this article (one of several), so I had to take a break to calm my nerves.
As many of you know, this comes on the heels of the bailout, and subsequent lavish spending of the company on its top people. Here's the breakdown.

• Between Sept. 17th and Oct. 24th 2008, drew a total of $90.3 billion from bailout loan
• The week after receiving the bailout, execs headed to a pricey spa retreat in Cali., dropping $440,000
• Oct. 17th, AIG execs racked up another $86,000 on a splendid little English hunting trip
• Nov. 10th, execs spent $343,000 at another resort in Phoenix (they tried to hide this one)

AIG, seriously, DO these people really deserve this kind of hand-and-foot treatment? After making completely horrible business choices, and having to turn over control of 79.9% of your company to the government, then being REMOVED from the Dow Jones average, is it really fair to further reward these people?
It seems to me a bit like losing your house through reckless disregard to your own finances. But it wasn't just your house you lost, it was everyone else on the block as well. And then someone comes along and moves you back into the house, and you go out and buy new leather couches, and sit them right on the lawn. Real classy, guys. Why don't you just spit on those newly homeless while you're at it.

An Open Letter to Sean Hannity

Dear Mr. Hannity,

I want to thank you, Sean, for making me care about politics and enjoy the news again. These past few years we have seen the homogenization of the news, the partisanship in politics grow stronger, and a general staleness in the reporting of the facts. I couldn't bear to watch CNN anymore, seeing it become too trite and boring this last decade. I didn't know where to turn for news, and had almost given up until something miraculous happened. I heard your show playing on a co worker's radio. Within minutes I was totally engaged, my eyes opened and my mind able to break free of the dull prison it had slipped into. The most amazing part, you made me able to laugh again.
You must truly be a Great American, if only for the fact that you have made news entertaining again. The wisecracks of Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and Jon Stewart are nothing compared to your wildly hilarious claims, things so outlandishly unreasonable only Ann Coulter would believe them true. You kept me laughing right through this recent election, in a time of great economic turmoil and social upheaval. Your amazingly crafted diatribes on popular right-wing political figures makes the likes of Phil Hendrie seem like an amateur. You made Obama seem like a radical, elitist, socialist, un-American Muslim; someone so hellbent on slaughtering unborn children and turning the country into a fascist regime, supporting terrorism AND a woman's right to choose, that sometimes I was laughing so hard that I couldn't keep the tears from my eyes.
At times you were so spot on in character, I almost believed that YOU believed the things you were saying. I was smiling all day when I heard you telling people that living on 100K a year wasn't easy, and pimping yourself out for GM is just priceless. You sound just like a perfect mouthpiece for corporatism, but still decry a bailout of the SAME company who you advertise for! Words just can't describe my overwhelming gratitude for what you are doing. So all I will say is again, thank you, Mr. Hannity, for making me laugh.

-- WiseGuise

Persecute Me

Persecute me,
I am a menace
to society. (socialist)
Persecute me,
I am a threat
to your family. (faggot)

Persecute me.
I am a danger
to others. (muslim)
Persecute me!
I am disjoined
from reality! (unamerican)
Persecute me!
I am a threat
to morality! (baby-killer)
Persecute me!!
I am anyone
but you. (righteous, pious, god-fearing)
Everyone needs an enemy;
fear that which you do not
want to understand.

Static

Do you feel it?
That--something
coming up from
right in front of you,
static in your television
program, whispering
between the commercials,
telling you desperately
something is
--out of order,
--amiss,
--not quite right?
It's there, feeling
for those tender parts
of your ego,
motioning to you
out of shadows, gathering
together behind
open eyelids,
creating static
on every iPod,
filling the invisible
waves in the air.
Everyone buying
into a lifestyle,
they can feel it;
spending to fend off
the inevitable.
The only way to see it,
is to pause
for a moment, look
around you, your life,
see who you are,
and realize that in
keeping up, constantly
changing, you have
become static.

Turkey Day

Reminds me of Predator

Once again I have overeaten and I feel disgusted with myself. I tried to offset the 4,000 caloric intake of food with a lot of fresh vegetables--which I subsequently dipped most of in ranch dressing. Damn you, mother.
But the most shaming bit of indulgence was this. I added pineapple juice, so that makes it slightly healthier, right? But, seriously. This stuff is like crack. For fat people. Or skinny people. Who smoke crack. It's been called 'meat candy.' I ate three pieces of pie with whipped cream just to take the edge off. Good lord, I think I'm going to throw up, but only to make some more room for those divine lil' heart-cloggers.
I wanted to down a couple beers when I got home, but my stomach took up to weeping and wailing, forewarning of the imminent doom my bowels would bring upon me should I choose to take such a food-hardy course of inaction. So I settled down and chose to review a slightly healthier drink for the other blog I contribute to. What is it? Oh, I don't like to brag. It's a humble little piece of cyberspace. Better Libations, for everyone!

Death on Wheels

Driving, GTA III Style

Let's get some of the cliche's out of the way, shall we? Almost everywhere you go, people are bound to say that their drivers are 'the worst'. Having driven through multiple states on multiple occasions, I have seen a fair amount of bad driving, and just different driving styles in general. The lazy dust-bowl cruisers. The drive-or-die Westerners. Southern Californians are notorious for speeding in rush hour. The whole pack is going 90 mph, and by god, you better go with the flow or get demolished.
In the state I nervously learned and honed my driving abilities, Utah, people seem to forget that it snows several months out of the year, and with that knowledge goes their winter driving abilities. I honestly know this is a fact, I work in the automotive repair industry, and we are coming up on our busiest time of the year. The snow dumps and people freak out. "Wha-what is this? It's like some sort of crystallized water is falling from the sky! But-but I need to get to work 5 minutes late like usual! Goddamn you, old man winter!" Those normally unsafe triple-lane-changes at 75 mph get a little interesting when it's 30 degrees and it snowed the night before.
I gained a whole new appreciation for defensive driving when I began seriously riding motorcycles. After my first brush with death, I learned to wait at intersections and eyeball those cell-phone users more seriously. I have also become unusually acquainted with people changing lanes into my personal space, apparently unaware of the inconspicuous bright blue, roaring bullet-of-death upon which an equally shiny, bright-blue, six-foot-three rider sits.
And will someone please tell me why in bloody, murderous hell they haven't outlawed texting in cars? Cell phones are bad enough, but this brings an entirely new meaning to distraction. Can't you people go without picking up that damnable device for 15-30 minutes? Jesus wept.

Allow Me to Introduce My Blog

This blog will be a venue to unleash my sociopathic tantrums upon the internets, consisting mostly of my view of the daily and constant irritations of this world, whatever or whomever is currently riling me up, and whatever brilliant ideas escape the inhibition-snares of my synaptic creativity.

I hope you enjoy it, I know I will.